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Just How Accurate Are Science Fictional Space Battles?
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bulldogtrekker
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 1:42 pm    Post subject: Just How Accurate Are Science Fictional Space Battles? Reply with quote

Just How Accurate Are Science Fictional Space Battles?
Robbie Gonzalez, I09

In the latest installment of It's Okay to be Smart, Joe Hanson talks about the physics of fictional space battles.....

LINK:
http://io9.com/just-how-accurate-are-science-fictional-space-battles-1639900963
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 2:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I enjoyed the maneuvers of the Starfury fighters in Babylon 5 because they appeared to conform to zero-G conditions in a vacuum.

I've always discounted complaints about being able to hear explosions in space. Inasmuch as we're watching video or cinema productions, it all depends on where the virtual microphone is placed.

Since we customarily hear the explosions as soon as we see them, the "microphone" is assumed to be at the point of the explosion, not where the camera is.

With the mic being at the location of the explosion, the sound can be carried by the debris or momentary gas cloud of whatever is exploding.

How many times have you watched some non-sci-fi movie depicting two characters off in the distance, but you can hear them conversing as though you were right next to them? Now, if you see an explosion off in the distance in outer space and there's a delay before you hear it, then sure, that's erroneous. But it's also extremely rare in cinema.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 4:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You know what I really hate?

I hate the way they play all that music out in space!

I'm sitting there in the theater, trying to enjoy the battle around the Death Star in Star Wars, and the filmmakers insult my intelligence by letting the London Philharmonic Orchestra blast out that rousing soundtrack, even though we all know there's no air in space!

How are those musician supposed to blow those woodwinds and brass instruments if they're in a freakin' vacuum? Huh? Explain that one to me, please! Confused

I mean, dammit, sometimes the music is so loud it drowns out the explosions!

When are those Hollywood idiots going to realize you can't have music in space because there's . . .
no . . . air! Evil or Very Mad
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Krel
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 28, 2014 10:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
You know what I really hate?

I hate the way they play all that music out in space!

I'm sitting there in the theater, trying to enjoy the battle around the Death Star in Star Wars, and the filmmakers insult my intelligence by letting the London Philharmonic Orchestra blast out that rousing soundtrack -- even though we all know there's no air in space!

How are those musician supposed to blow those woodwinds and brass instruments if they're in a freakin' vacuum? Huh! Explain that one to me, please! Confused

I mean, dammit, sometimes the music is so loud it drowns out the explosions!

When are those Hollywood idiots going to realize you can't have music in space because there's . . .
no . . . air! Evil or Very Mad

Oh what memories! I brought this point up at a few conventions back in the late 70s/80s with the no sound in space people. They looked at me like I was crazy! Shocked

Their argument was that it is a movie, you have to have music! My counter argument was that it is a movie, you have to have sound!

They didn't get the point. Laughing

David.
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Pye-Rate
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 12:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

For space battles I prefer railguns. Directed energy weapons (ray/beam weapons) have problems with the inverse square law and generating that much energy in the first place. How do you cool something that generates enough waste heat to melt your ship?
On the other hand railguns are fire and forget. To give an idea of what IS possible; a 10lb slug fired at 60% LS (light speed) would split the Earth in twain.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
Oh what memories! I brought this point up at a few conventions back in the late 70s/80s with the no sound in space people. They looked at me like I was crazy! Shocked

Their argument was that it is a movie, you have to have music! My counter argument was that it is a movie, you have to have sound!

They didn't get the point.
Laughing

Wow, maybe they didn't get the point, but you sure did! Very Happy

That, of course, is exactly my feeling about the use of sounds in space. Consider how judiciously sound is used to enhance the drama in space scenes. When a ship's weapons are fired or it's engines throttle up, we hear a loud noise that helps convince us we're looking at a spacecraft — not just a special effect.

But if an astronaut is walking across the Moon, we don't hear his feet crunching in the gravel — because that helps convince us he's on the Moon, not on a movie set.

It's all part of the suspension of disbelief. Anything that fools our hindbrain has a legitimate place in the film-making process, even when it breaks the laws of physics.

But we have to be careful, because an educated hindbrain finds itself yanked right out of the fantasy if it expects the spaceships to be silent and they suddenly start making a racket.

Knowing when to make a racket and when not to is what good film makers do. That's why they get the big bucks!

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Krel
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 12:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Knowing when to make a racket and when not to is what good film makers do. That's why they get the big bucks!

That is one of the reasons that I love "Moon Zero Two". There are only a couple of scenes where you hear sound, and it is appropriate to the circumstances. The rest of the time, music takes the place of sound effects. I find it to be very effective.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 29, 2014 6:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for reminding me about Moon Zero Two! I have a review of that movie I can use to start a thread.

I'll do that right now
! Very Happy
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noetic_hatter
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the way the fighters work on BSG, using the retro rockets to be able to spin around and turn on a dime.

It's something we have to adjust to, and that show did a nice job of keeping the familiar while adapting some tactics to zero g.

Compare to the Death Star attack in SW, which is basically just a standard dogfight sequence that could have been done in 1940.
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Krel
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always thought that the attack on Moonbase Alpa in the "Space 1999" episode "War Games", was a great space war sequence. The Hawk fighters rotating to strafe MBA as they fly over, the explosive decompression. Brutal stuff.

David.
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 3:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
. . . it is a movie, you have to have sound

Not necessarily. Many of my favorite movies are SILENT movies.

Sometimes today's movies have to much of everything. Whatever happened to simplicity?

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Krel
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 3:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Robert (Butch) Day wrote:
Krel wrote:
. . . it is a movie, you have to have sound

Not necessarily. Many of my favorite movies are SILENT movies.

Sometimes today's movies have to much of everything. Whatever happened to simplicity?

Welcome back Butch, it has been kind of empty here without you.

I love silent movies too, I used to watch them on the local PBS station during the 70s. But I have read that many theaters used to preform live sound effects as well as music for silent movies. I have to say that I have no first hand experience as to whether or not this is true. Laughing

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Pye-Rate
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 6:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pizza and Pipes (they had a pipe organ) in Ballard used to have Saturday at the silents. The whole package, movie, music, and sound effects.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 26, 2014 8:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Strictly speaking, there's no such thing as "silent movies". as in "a movie the audience watches in complete silence".

As stated above, the old movie theaters did everything they could to provide sound effects and music while the silent movies were playing.

And that's why I agree with Krel. A movie has got to have sound, one way or another. It's just gotta.

I'm on record as not being a silent film buff, because I love the dramatic effect of sound, dialog, and music so much that it's difficult for me to enjoy the silent films.

It's a little like being asked to close one eye and watch a 3D movie.

I guess that's why I had so much fun when I spent a week collecting and posting links to old sci-fi radio shows recently, and why I listened to dozens of them in the process.

I can really enjoy a story told with audio only — no video at all — much more than I can enjoy silent movies. I'm good at imagining the video aspect of a story told with audio only, but not so good imagining what I would be hearing if a silent movie weren't silent.

Maybe that's why I'm a writer. Hmmm. What do you guys think?

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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 27, 2014 12:23 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

COMMENT: "Ballard" is a district/area in N W Seattle, WA.

Bud, technically, you are correct. But the word 'silent' is used to denote "a film without a soundtrack or recording". Which, again is technically incorrect. Most of the theaters didn't have the facility to amplify what sounds were recorded on the old Edison records. So the audience was deprived of what little sound that was available. The larger theaters had live musical shows, called "prologues", often themed to the main movie, before the movie. A perfect example of these shows can be seen in the James Cagney 1933 film Footlight Parade. The most spectacular one in Footlight Parade is "By a Waterfall", which inspired Robert A. Heinlein's waterfall sequence in Glory Road.

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